The

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

of Barclay, in Franklin Township,

Bradford County, Pennsylvania Bradford County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, its population was 59,967. Its county seat is Towanda. The county was created on February 21, 1810, from parts ...

, was a coal mining town. Coal was transported down the mountain by a gravity powered

incline plane An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...

rail system. There was a brake house at the top of Barclay Mountain. The loaded cars were attached to a cable that pulled the empty cars back up. At the bottom, the cars were hauled 16 miles into Towanda by steam locomotives, to be emptied there into the Pennsylvania Canal's North Branch coal barges. The Barclay cemetery still exists and provides an interesting place to visit. The towns of Barclay and Laquin are in close proximity of each other. Barclay came and went before Laquin, Pennsylvania. The first mined coal and the second processed timber from the surrounding forests. The Barclay Railroad was abandoned in 1899, damaged by a flood in 1900, and rebuilt as the

Susquehanna and New York Railroad The Susquehanna and New York Railroad Ian Cranstone(compiled from Official Railway Equipment Registers), accessed June 2009 was a short-line railroad connecting the Lehigh Valley Railroad at Towanda, Pennsylvania, with the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

. This operated between Monroe, Pennsylvania (Monroeton) and

Williamsport, Pennsylvania Williamsport is a city in, and the county seat of, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. It recorded a population of 27,754 at the 2020 Census. It is the principal city of the Williamsport Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a popul ...

, and was abandoned during WW II with the rails removed and repurposed for the war effort. The railroad is quite an interesting story and most of the trackbed, and bridges are still very much in evidence throughout the valleys of Schrader Creek and

Pleasant Stream Pleasant Stream is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of Lycoming Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Se ...

Bibliography

References

{{coord, 41, 39, 21, N, 76, 37, 35, W, type:city_region:US-PA_source:GNIS-enwiki, display=title Former populated places in Bradford County, Pennsylvania Ghost towns in Pennsylvania